


Dead but Delicious

by heibai



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M, finally i can write a vampire soft succ story, rise luwin rise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 04:43:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15112034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heibai/pseuds/heibai
Summary: Yukhei the Vampire drank something he’s allergic to and it’s up to Sicheng the Human to save his dead but delicious vampire friend from getting himself permanently killed.





	Dead but Delicious

**Author's Note:**

> this is the closest I'll ever go to anything that involves sucking thenk

One of the very first thing that Sicheng learned after striking a friendship with the _strikingly_ curious Yukhei is this: being a friend to a non-humanitarian vampire is, unsurprisingly, tricky as fuck.

 

Not only does he have to _hide_ from the rest of the world, the fact that fantastical creatures of the night really do exist amongst us,

 

Sicheng was also forced to stop eating vinegar if he doesn't want Yukhei to faint on the mere sight of him. Which is an almost impossible thing to do when you live in the _friggin continent of Asia._

 

His skin, clothes, and hair would constantly be covered in a thin, sticky layer of sunscreen that even his coworker has started to think that maybe, the boney Dong Sicheng looked ghoulish not because he’s malnourished, but because he’s been over-training himself to join a 54k marathon. Sicheng hasn’t even owned a running shoes since he graduated highschool. So imagine how annoyed he was everytime someone offered him to join the office’s running club’s evening run.

 

He also has to avoid temples like how a closeted gay avoids gay bars.

 

Not to mention how as a non-humanitarian, sometimes (often), he has to become an accomplice to Yukhei on his night excursions, where they would haggle with butchers from around town so that they would give the best price for that gallons of fresh pigs blood just because he feels _‘too afraid to do it alone.’_

 

“I’m a vampire, but I know I’m not a charismatic one.”

 

Yea right. The time where they’ve argued on Yukhei’s moral standing and how drinking human blood would be A.) cheaper (as it’s free) and B.) less troublesome, is too often to be counted with both of their fingers and toes combined.

 

Don’t even talk to him about that one time when they were almost involved in a 2 vs 15 gang fight with a neighboring werewolf pack. Ever since then Sicheng never leave the house without taking with him 1.) a can of air horn 2.) his grandma's silver butter knife and 3.) a bar of chocolate.

 

But if there’s one thing that made his friendship with Yukhei worth all the hassle is, ironically, one of the main inhuman trait that came with his vampirism.

 

Unlimited time.

 

More specifically, his lack of need for sleep.

 

As a graduate hire for a multinational consulting firm, sleep is a long lost friend that Sicheng rarely missed and so, Yukhei’s constant chittering that came out of his earphones is a blessing that he knew he can always count on. Especially on nights where Sicheng found himself working until time seemed to be less concrete of a concept than the puffiness of his phantom eyelid hovering over his stinging eyeballs.

 

Sicheng’s caffeine came in the form of listening to people talk about _anything_ , and Yukhei has had four complete decades of _everything_ that he couldn’t wait to share with his _‘only human friend that didn’t run away from me, wanted me to be their master, attempted to kill me, or tried to see if my skin sparkles under the sun.’_ They truly were a match made in eternal limbo.

 

Yukhei is also very _very_ attentive that it almost borders to being intrusive. Sicheng has a strong suspicion that he thinks of him more like a cute _pet,_ than a human companion, what with Yukhei constantly feeding him on times when Sicheng responded to his _“have you eaten dinner?”_ with a nonchalant _“no ;).”_

 

Not that he has anything to complain against. Because afterwards Yukhei would always teleport his ass to Sicheng’s cubicle to plop onto his lap a warm (and free) takeaway dinner.

 

“I’ll call you when you’re done eating,” he would say, using the loud groan and crackle of Sicheng’s cheap plastic chair to mask his words (because he _somehow_ always opt to materialise in a way that his long legs would end up straddling across Sicheng’s lap).

 

And so, when one day Yukhei failed to ring him up for their daily 8 pm catch up phone call, Sicheng instantly knew that something fishy was going down.

 

_ _ _

 

Okay. Maybe _instantly_ isn’t the best word to describe the truth of the situation.

 

Maybe _slowly but suddenly_ is better suited for the fact that it took four days for Sicheng to notice that something was off in his daily routine.

 

To be fair, Sicheng just barely finished dealing with an annoyingly demanding out of office client when he was able to re-enter his personal life once more. Forget checking his personal chat notifications, Sicheng hasn’t even seen his own bed on the three nights that he spent sleeping inside a cramped broom closet-turned-living quarter with his three other unlucky coworkers.

 

He felt kind of bad. _A lot_ of bad, truly, that once he’d gotten some food down his esophagus and was sure that he’d truly shaken his supervisor off from his back, Sicheng instantly board the bus line that would lead him to Yukhei’s nest. His bat cave. His apartment at the back of a train track that would shake everytime a train rushed past.

 

_

 

The first red flag that only furthered his worry came soon after Sicheng stepped off from the bus. When he looked at the third window from the left and saw that it was pitch dark. Yukhei might be a vampire, but he _loves_ him some bright lights.

 

Second red flag was when nobody answered the door even after Sicheng’s pressed the bell for almost ten minutes straight.

 

Nobody’s home. Have those ancient vampire hunters finally caught up to him?

 

It’s a great thing Yukhei gave Sicheng a copy of his apartment keys after that one time he was knocked out for three weeks because of _‘the ascension of Uranus’_ or something. And so, long gone were the days when he had to climb in to Yukhei’s apartment through his bathroom ventilation windows.

 

“Yukhei, Lucas… Luke! Is anyone home?” Dropping his backpack at the living room sofa, Sicheng walked into Yukhei’s place with one hand covering his scrunched up nose. The apartment smelled like stale perfume and days old roadkill and Sicheng suspected that Yukhei hasn’t cleaned it for a week, if not more, considering the towering pile of mugs crusted with dried up blood on the kitchen sink that looked like it was taken straight out of a slasher movie. The air was musty, the atmosphere stagnant, like nothing has moved within it for days before Sicheng came and jarringly woke them all into a state of shock.

 

With more lights being turned on as Sicheng made his way deeper into the apartment, the more he saw of the suspicious debris that cluttered the corners of the room. They looked like someone had roughly hacked through packages of raw ground meat only to nibble on them a little before letting them rot in the open.

 

Yukhei might not be the cleanest chap out there, but this? This is straight up _abnormal._

 

Sicheng, poor innocent Sicheng did not think that all of this was threatening in any sense. Weird, yes, but his mind was somehow stuck behind a line that said _wait for a second_ for far too long, that when revelation struck him, it struck him _hard._ Essentially grabbing him by his collar and dragging him to the entrance of Yukhei’s room, all darkened and disorienting, illuminated with only one imaginary red neon sign that said _danger_ blinking over his head.

 

“Yukhei,-? oh _god.”_

 

Sicheng found him lying face up on his bed. What used to be his duvet laid in shreds over his damp torso. He was too shocked to turn on the lights, but the harsh glow coming from the hallway gave enough illumination for Sicheng to see that Yukhei was lying there with his eyes wide open, frozen in an expression of fear and pain.

 

For a split second he legitimately thought that Yukhei was dead. He would’ve believed his initial observation if not for the fact that Yukhei was shivering, violently, even if the room’s temperature was nowhere near freezing.

 

He didn’t blink through the long period of Sicheng being petrified on the doorway, nor when Sicheng was awoken from his trance and rushed to his side to check on him. A small nagging voice at the back of his head told Sicheng that maybe Yukhei hasn’t blinked since the last time they spoke on Tuesday.

 

“Oh _shit,_ Yukhei,- hey, can you hear me? Are you okay? Are you hurt? What happened?”

 

Sicheng knew, from how bad his condition was, that Yukhei was not in the position to answer any of his inquiries, or even _discern_ his barrage of questions. But he was panicked, he couldn’t think straight. Forgive him.

 

Yukhei reacted to his presence as if he was violently woken up from a deep slumber only to see with his own eyes, a ghost. He let out a weak yelp and flailed his arms around in the effort to shake Sicheng away from him. Normally, this would’ve resulted in Sicheng being flung to the other side of the room. It should’ve been a clear enough indication of how bad his current condition was, when Yukhei couldn’t even manage to pull Sicheng’s hand from his shoulder after he’d put all his might into it.

 

“It’s me, hey, hey! Yukhei, it’s me. It’s Sicheng,” he said in as soft of a tone as his panicked self could manage. Sicheng tried to calm him down by pressing his palm onto his drenched forehead, but he had to jerk his hand off from Yukhei’s skin in shock when instead of heat, it felt as if he was touching the skin of a corpse that died on the night Titanic sunk. Clammy, slimy, and cold as hell.

 

“Sicheng… why you here?” Yukhei calmed down considerably when his wandering gaze ended up on the vicinity of Sicheng’s face. But his movement was still frantic, and the words that came out of his mouth were grammatically incorrect at best, and complete gibberish at worst.

 

“I haven’t heard from you in four days.” Sicheng wanted to tack on a quick apology at the end of that sentence, but decided otherwise, as he suddenly found himself having to handle a handful of dead weight (literally), when he had to drag a flailing Yukhei that demanded to be helped up so he could rest his back on the headboard of his bed.

 

“Four? Oh shit, I mess up, dinnen I?”

 

“I don’t know, _I don’t know.”_ With him sitting up, Sicheng noticed even _more_ alarming things than before. Yukhei’s fingers were twitching like mad, eyes never able to focus on one thing for more than a split second, and he seemed to have adopted a delirious tick where he would randomly repeat words over and over like a broken record. It looked as if his arrival triggered the onset of these unexplainable erratic behaviour, and Sicheng wanted nothing more than to quickly put a stop to it, “Yukhei you gotta help me here, you gotta tell me what went wrong.”

 

Yukhei somehow found enough mental capacity to clam up when he heard that question. However hard Sicheng tried to persuade him to speak, he kept biting his lips shut and only shook his head in a jerky movement. He looked like a child putting up a silent tantrum, only if the child is the size of three doored refrigerator and appeared to be hanging on the edge of life.

 

In the end, Sicheng had to resort to the last thing he wanted to do to a dying man.

 

And that was to slap the shit out of Yukhei’s left cheek.

 

“For God sake Yukhei! I’m serious!”

 

Sicheng knew the slap wouldn’t cause any harm to his inhuman friend. But the way he just used the Lord’s name in vain, on the other hand? It caused enough damage on Yukhei’s eardrums that he would’ve doubled over the bed in pain if he had the strength to do so. “Please, _please,_ just… wait, ok? I’m gonna tell you, just wait…”

 

As Yukhei was trying his best to regulate his breathing to something less hyperventilate-y, Sicheng pushed himself away from his wrecked bed and navigated his way through the rotting debris that were scattered on Yukhei’s bedroom floor. He was wondering how the neighbours haven’t filed any complaints for air polution, what with the potent smell of this pungent odour that must’ve seeped through the thin, porous walls of the apartments when he caught the sight of a familiar label on one of the deflated plastic bags. Familiar, because Yukhei has told him numerous times to ignore it, to _avoid_ it, when they’re doing their weekly blood purchases.

 

“Don’t tell me you accidentally drank chicken blood?!”

 

Yukhei seemed to struggle in swallowing the bile that rose inside his throat after Sicheng mentioned _chicken blood,_ before sighing out in defeat and coming clean with the stupid act that he’d done to himself, “it wasn’t… accidental.”

 

“Are you fucking kidding me.”

 

“My client! Ran away! With my money!” He yelled, or attempted to. Punctuating his weak yet angered words with his arms flapping lifelessly onto the soggy bed, “a week’s work. Gone. Didn’t have anything to get the usual stuff.”

 

“And the reason why you didn’t call me to help you is…?”

 

Yukhei only waved his hand at that question, before shrugging his shoulders and sagging back to his bed’s headboard, “I thought the allergy’s gone. Been decades since I left my _jiangshi_ lifestyle. Thought I’ll be okay.”

 

“Well, clearly you’re not.” Sicheng let out all of his disbelieve in one loud chortle, rolling his eyes and ignoring Yukhei’s whines, which clearly showed that he was also _annoyed_ that his friend was annoyed by his lack of foresight. “What should we do then?”

 

Yukhei shrugged his shoulders again, “I don’t know.”

 

“Wha,- what did you do the last time it happened?!” This time, Sicheng was truly _done_ with Yukhei’s shenanigans, and proceeded to rush up to him, grabbing his shoulders and shaking it as if he was trying to put some sense into him.

 

“I passed out. Woke up, already healthy.” He mumbled, head tilted low as it was the only way for him to escape from Sicheng’s wide, ever-searching eyes, “please, Sicheng, _I’m sorry,_ ok? I didn’t… it was a… it was a mistake. And I’m,-”

 

He clammed up again then, at the end of his disjointed explanation. First Sicheng thought it was because Yukhei felt that wave of tourette-like symptom was about to come back to him and he didn’t want to sit there for the next thirty second repeating the word _‘sorry’_. But somehow, from the silent, pleading look in his eyes, Sicheng could roughly guess a more accurate continuation for his severed sentence. It wasn’t _sorry,_ it was _‘I’m already sick, I’ve had it bad enough. So please don’t be mad at me. Please?’_

 

Fair enough.

 

“Is there anyone I can ask? You’re still in that pesky dudebro vampire group chat, aren’t you?”

 

It seems that the mention of the group chat brought more pain into Yukhei than any mention of the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, when it looked like the two words almost caused him to projectile vomit whatever chicken blood was left inside his stomach, “please don’t go there.”

 

“You’re sick, Yukhei,” Sicheng sighed, rummaging through the piles of trash and dirty clothes in an attempt to search for Yukhei’s phone. He found it on the back pocket of a blood stained jeans, still magically alive even after its four days abandonment with only 15% battery power left. “Maybe it’s time to put your ego elsewhere.”

 

As his phone password was set to 1234 (has always been and probably always will be, no matter how often Sicheng nagged him to change it to something less... old people-like), it didn't take a lot of effort for Sicheng to find the chatting app that housed the group chat for the bunch of modern vampires.

 

Yukhei told him that they usually talk about new and hip places to get victims. But as he was so over those days of drinking human blood, he would never join in on those conversations. Occasionally there are a few reminders about the most recent sightings of local vampire hunters, which he has to grudgingly admit to be quite a useful feature in the otherwise burdensome group chat.

 

But most of the time, and this is why he stopped going there and has muted the group since almost two years ago, these vampires would just use the group as an outlet to see which of them is the most 'emo'. A bunch of dramatic, attention whores collected into one group chat? It's truly a recipe for disaster.

 

This was not a time to explore on all that, though. Yukhei was probably dying (again), and the radioactive group chat was, sadly, his best bet to keep himself from being permanently dead.

 

'Hi guys, this is Yukhei's friend, (human friend).  
I need some help here.  
So, he kindda drank some animal blood that he's allergic to and well...  
He's not in a great condition.  
Do any of you know a way to cure this?

Thx, Sicheng.  
  
\- W.Yukhei'

 

'o m g i thought it's our dear Lucas finally returning :((  
but hi Sicheng! ~  
  
\-  K.Jungwoo'

 

'Hello hello.  
So ... can you help me?  
  
\- W.Yukhei aka Sicheng'

 

'Human huh?  
(㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) .  
  
\- N.Yuta

 

‘Yuta, don’t you dare scare him.  
Hello! I’m Kun, and we’ll try our best!  
But first, we have to know, is he awake? Can he talk?  
  
\- Q.Kun’

 

‘Us?  
/Us?/  
I’m not dealing with another one of this makeshift hospital shit.  
I’m not gonna be part for any other undead death.  
  
\- K.Dongyoung’

 

Sicheng stared at the rapidly growing wall of messages and _knew._ It’s not even the busiest hour of the day and he _knew._ It’s only been nearly thirty seconds but he _knew_ (of how tiring this group chat must feel once prime time hits). But that’s okay, that’s okay, Sicheng told himself. He only has to stomach this for a little while and he can say goodbye to this bunch of emo weirdos.

 

And so he quickly get the people inside the group chat up to date with Yukhei’s condition, while the person in question was sitting right behind him, moaning and pleading for Sicheng to stop whatever it is that he was doing.

 

“They won’t ever let this one gooooo,” he whined.

 

Sicheng responded with a tired sigh and asked, “would you rather go through that or die permanently?"

 

The silence that followed showed that Yukhei dared to allow himself to even _contemplate_ on the uncontemplateable option and it was enough to make Sicheng roll his eyes before focusing back on the wildly buzzing phone.

  
  
  
‘I heard brain of a spider monkey is great for this.  
  
\- J.Jaehyun’

 

  
  
  
‘Oh my shit, talking about blood,  
you guys won’t believe what happened to me yesterday  
  
\- N.Yuta’

 

  
  
  
‘What happened?? o.O  
  
\- K.Jungwoo’

 

  
  
  
‘Chew on some belladonna roots.  
  
\- M.Taeil’

 

  
  
  
‘I drank an old grandma from the night market and she legit tasted like dried salty sardines  
(T.T ) ( T.T)  
  
\- N.Yuta’

 

  
  
  
‘Seriously, spider monkey’s brain.  
Trust me. I know a guy who got cured by it.  
  
\- J.Jaehyun’  
  
  
  
  
  
‘Ewww Yuta thats disgusting xd  
  
\- K.Jungwoo.’

 

  
  
  
‘Guys shut up  
  
\- Q.Kun’

 

  
  
  
‘Yeah I know T.T  
Never again  
  
\- N.Yuta’

 

  
  
  
‘@W.Yukhei aka Sicheng  
Listen to me, he has to drink human blood  
  
\- Q.Kun’

 

  
  
  
_‘Well, finally something worth noting,’_ Sicheng thought as he quickly formulated a further inquiry.

 

‘How much?  
  
\- W.Yukhei aka Sicheng’

 

  
  
  
‘As much as he needs  
At least until he’s lucid  
  
\- Q.Kun.’

 

  
  
  
‘@N.Yuta don’t get me started on that one time  
When i had to drink an old man in a pinch xd  
  
\- K.Jungwoo’

 

  
  
  
‘Any type will be fine, right?’  
  
\- W.Yukhei aka Sicheng’

 

  
  
  
‘Oh my shit, i remember that LOLOL  
We’re a mess (/□＼*)・゜  
  
\- N.Yuta’

 

  
  
  
‘Yeah  
Just any you can get your hands on will be fine  
  
\- Q.Kun’

 

  
  
  
‘Thx @Q.Kun.  
I’ll keep you posted.  
  
\- W.Yukhei aka Sicheng’

 

  
  
‘Wow, 7 reads and no response to my suggestion.  
Thanks guys.  
  
\- J.Jaehyun.’

  
  
_

 

“Good news, I got the solution for you, stupid ass.” Sicheng could see the start of a relieved smile begin to form on Yukhei’s face, but it was quickly flipped into a kind of surprised-slash-terrified grimace when Sicheng suddenly used his tactics against him and served Yukhei his just desserts. Keeping Yukhei helplessly and wordlessly sitting there while he briskly crawled up to him and straddled his legs, using his weight to keep them in place even though they both knew that Yukhei was so far gone, he wouldn’t have the strength to move them elsewhere even if he wanted to. “Bad news, it’s human blood. _My_ blood.”

 

After he said that, Sicheng could only watch with a weirded out expression on his face when he saw Yukhei acting more and more like a child with each passing second. Whining even louder than before and shaking his head furiously while sobbing, “you won’t… can’t make me.”

 

“Come on Yukhei! You’re going to die, _again,_ if we don’t do this!” When Yukhei tried to keep his stance with such valiant effort, if pathetically trying to claw one's way out of an uncomfortable situation can be categorised as valiant, Sicheng had to put a stop to it by dragging his upper body back to its previous spot. It feels like he was dealing with a slippery kitten that doesn't want to be given a bath after it'd fell into the trash bin. “What?! Do you want me to rob a hospital for some blood bags? Kidnap a homeless person? Is that it? You want me to commit a crime, huh? Will that make you happy?!”

 

As he did so, dragging Yukhei over and over again so his back was not twisted to inhumane positions, Sicheng finally realised how _pathetic_ this vampire friend of his really was. Limp, covered in sweat and what must've been the equivalent for human vomit, some sort of watery, sticky plasmic goo that stained the front of his shirt. He was mad at Yukhei for inconveniencing the both of them with such a trivial mistake, but maybe, just maybe, he has to tone down his annoyance a little bit, and be more thoughtful to his friend's condition.

 

And so he once again tried to gain Yukhei's attention. Softer this time, more attentive, by carefully tidying the unruly strands of hair that were stuck on his sweat drenched forehead back to where they belong. “You have to help me help you, ok? I can’t do this by myself.”

 

“What if I…? Did what I did?” It worked, sort of. Yukhei finally spoke in something more intelligible than his long bouts of high pitched whines. But the way he looked at Sicheng made it seem that he was hurt more by Sicheng's attempt of saving him than before, when he was shouting and telling Yukhei about how stupid he was. “I'll accidentally kill you.”

 

“You won’t.”

 

“I will.”

 

“You won’t!”

 

“I will!”

 

"You won't," Sicheng thought that cupping Yukhei's face to get him to understand was an overkill. Cradling that puffed out cheeks that felt like the skin of weeks old rotten cheese rind was something way too over the top to calm him down. But the motion of his thumb softly wiping the pooling sweat from Yukhei’s massive eye-bags got him to finally focus, and it also managed to shut him up real quick. So maybe it wasn't that bad of a thing after all. "I trust you. You won't."

 

Yukhei let out a defeated laughter at that, using the last of his strength to pry Sicheng's hands off from his face, "how do you know?"

 

"Oh, well. Maybe because you like me too much?" In his effort to lighten up the mood, and to further reassure Yukhei that everything's going to be _fine,_ Sicheng swivelled their hands around until he could get Yukhei's fingers comfortably sitting in between his own. "How dangerous is vampire blood feeding anyway? If it's _that_ dangerous, there would be dozens after dozens of news reports about strange cases of corpses found in back-alleys with their blood drained dry, right?"

 

Yukhei would've probably slap his arm, out of jest, of course, and laughed at him for his gross underestimation. But he was in no position to do that, as both his arms and legs were trapped under Sicheng's control, and so he must be content in resorting to an accepting smile and an equally accepting shrug, "I guess."

 

With nothing more to argue on, Sicheng tilted his head and assuredly offered Yukhei his neck. And because he still had their fingers entwined, Sicheng used that opportunity to help guide him find _the_ spot. Placing and pressing his fingers slightly underneath his jaw, _slightly_ to his right, on that soft, thin skin that covered the strong pulse of life that coursed through the arterial vein. The thin skin that stood between Yukhei, and blood.

 

Yukhei was sick, he was still sick, but for the first time in that long night, Sicheng saw a little bit of life seeping into his glazed up eyes. Actually, it was more _fervent hunger and the excitement of eating_ than life, but live to eat, eat to live anyway, right? Same difference. “Missed it?”

 

“Don’t tempt me.” Sicheng felt slightly guilty for thinking how adorable Yukhei looked with how much he struggled to speak through the bout of nervous stutterings.

 

If Yukhei was still alive, his whole face would’ve bloomed in a firework of rosy pink.

 

If he was not dying, Sicheng might’ve even give in to the sudden urge to give Yukhei’s cheek a quick peck.

 

But Yukhei _was_ dying, so Sicheng resolved that he has to wait a little bit before he could do that. “All right Gandalf, do it.”

 

“You sure?”

 

“Yes.” He sounded sure when he said it. Though truthfully, Sicheng was nothing but.

 

Of course he was afraid. Of the _heckin_ course. One thin needle is enough to make most people cringe in fear. Two fangs? Thick, sharp bones that will pierce your _neck_ , out of all places, will probably make most adults piss in their pants.

 

He wanted to add to Yukhei, _‘do it quickly before I change my mind,’_ but decided not to when he realised how it’ll only make everything more complicated than they ever needed to be. And so he only bit his lips shut and said to himself, over and over, that it would be no different than giving his blood up for donation. He tried to prep himself with the fact that it _would_ be uncomfortable, definitely, but the pain would be manageable. Just like blood donations, _just like blood donations._

 

 _‘To hell with it,’_ Sicheng told himself, deciding to latch his hands onto Yukhei’s shoulders and pull him closer so that none of them could bail out from this precarious situation in the last second. So he wouldn’t chicken out from doing the one thing that mattered most, and Yukhei would get the sense that he needed to get on with it. Quick.

 

Yukhei’s vestigial breath, just like his body, was cold. His lips were nowhere near Sicheng’s skin yet the baby hairs on the back of his neck were already straining out of their pores after being hit with just one exhale. So, imagine Sicheng’s reaction when they did make contact with his skin. Those rotten fish egg lips against the warm neck, _burning_ , even, what with the compromising position causing Sicheng’s base desires to unwittingly go into overdrive.

 

And it came in the form of a tiny gasp. A tiny, surprised gasp. An _innocent_ sort of sound that you let out when you accidentally touch an item that has an extreme temperature,- oh who was he kidding. He moaned.

 

Yes, it was wrong. It was bordering on necrophilia in some ways, and Sicheng knew that. He didn’t need anyone, yet alone his own conscience, to remind him of how potentially disgusting the situation was. But he couldn’t help it, especially when Yukhei said his apologies without picking any distance with his neck. When Sicheng could feel Yukhei’s thumb unconsciously pressing ever so slightly firmer against his pulse point while those wet lips moved against his skin as he asked, “you all right?”

 

Yukhei was clearly worried when Sicheng failed to answer right away, and he almost broke the precious lip-to-skin contact just to check on what he must’ve thought as his fragile human friend malfunctioning way before the start of the main event. But Sicheng put a stop to that with a frantic grab of Yukhei’s matted hair, keeping his head where it _has_ to be, although he was starting to get confused for the reason why. Was it because he didn’t want Yukhei to see him in such a messy state? Or was it because he didn’t want Yukhei to stop whatever it was that he was doing?

 

Either way, it was the movement that signified their arrival at the point of no return.

 

Like a nurse prepping your skin for injection by swiping a pad of cotton soaked in alcohol over it, Yukhei did the same thing to Sicheng. In an almost procedural manner he ran his tongue across the nook of Sicheng’s neck and in that small, quiet time before a thunder strike, Sicheng suddenly found himself awashed with a sense of calm, knowing that he at least was in good hands. Twenty years of experience should be a good indication that he was great at it, no?

 

No, no, no, _no._ He quickly learned that no matter how long Yukhei’s done this, vampire blood feeding is still _vampire blood feeding._ And it was painful. Very much so, as he was essentially being stabbed by two pencil-like contraptions that _grew longer after they’d buried themselves inside his skin._

 

The initial shock and piercing pain caused him to almost yank himself away from Yukhei. But it seemed that either the merest exposure to human blood was enough to give him back his superhuman strength, or he was overtaken by the primitive instinct to not let his prey get away from him, because Sicheng found himself not being able to move away from Yukhei’s strong grip no matter how hard he tried.

 

But just as quick as the pain seared through him, it was gone. More exactly, it was _dulled. ‘He must’ve had something mixed in with his saliva, a natural anaesthetic or something,’_ a sliver of clear, coherent thought seeped into Sicheng’s mind before another set of strong sensation pulled his attention away from complete lucidity. A sort of nagging, throbbing itch that seemed to crawl outwards from their point of contact. His first instinct was to reach out for it and scratch for all he’s worth. But problem arose from the position of Yukhei’s head preventing him to do so, and a quick realisation that the itch came from _within_ him, from a place that couldn’t possibly be reached if he didn’t flay himself open and went in on it with a sharp scissor and a scalpel.

 

And so, even though it seemed counterintuitive, instead of giving in to the silent protests at the back of his head that were telling him to get the fuck away from there, Sicheng slipped his fingers deeper into Yukhei’s hair and let his inner conflict show in the way he paired his harsh tugging of the handful of hair on Yukhei’s the scalp with how insistently he tried to press himself tighter against Yukhei’s greedy arms. In a way, willingly letting himself be dropped into the bubbling vat of this strangely enjoyable feeling of sizzling tingles.

 

The more Sicheng pulled him close, the more pronounced Yukhei’s peculiar feeding ticks were relayed against his body, and they did nothing but confuse him even further. Because he wanted _more,_ more of everything. More of that tongue that absentmindedly swirled in circles against his numbed skin, sometimes pressing firmer around the sensitive parts that surrounded those pulsating fangs. He wanted more of Yukhei’s lips that ghosted over his neck as he mindlessly mumbled his apologies, over and over again.

 

Sicheng didn’t want this to end, because he somehow had constructed this instinctual idea that all of these strange sensations would amalgamate and lead him into a finish line of some sort, a point where all his phantom _almost-somethings_ and _nearly-theres_ would go away and open up a pathway that would lead to whatever wholesome feeling there is that could be closely related to having your blood sucked out of your body in record time _._ He didn’t want this to end, at least not _then,_ not when the flashing stars at the back of his tightly shut eyes were still in the colour of a neon yellow. What a buzzkill that would be.

 

But unfortunately, the more aggressive (and _delightful_ ) Yukhei went on about his feeding, the more Sicheng felt his head starting to get lighter, like the fluid inside of it was slowly but surely exchanged into a full canister of helium gas. He didn’t realise that he’d been biting down on his lips until he had to open them so he could ask Yukhei to, _“slow down a little.”_

 

His voice sounded strange, all shrill and shivery. In a split second, it reminded him of someone,- oh, that’s right. A dying Yukhei at the very first moment when he was woken up from his catatonic state.

 

 _‘Am I dying, am I dying?!’_ Just like his racing, irregularly beating heart, Sicheng’s thought began to race and the panic seemed to act as a spear that pierced through the thick blanket of fog that was caused by Yukhei’s weird vampire anaesthetic saliva.

 

“Y… Yukhei,” He has to fight through the rasp of his voice just to make it audible through the cacophony of loud sucking noises that Yukhei was making, “stop, stop!”

 

Even after he’d pathetically thrashed his legs and used his helium filled arms to rain down light pattering of slaps onto Yukhei’s back, the only response he gow was a muffled, far-away mumble, “… what?”

 

“Stop… stop, I’m not feeling,- _fuck!”_ Yukhei, after finally going out from his blissful feeding headspace and hearing the sounds of distress that Sicheng was making, quickly pushed himself away from his paper-white human. Which, apparently, was a bad thing to do. Because then he forgot to do the correct post-feeding procedure to victims he didn’t want to kill and left Sicheng’s neck looking like a mangled butcher carcass, with two leaking, gaping holes where his fangs used to be.

 

And for Sicheng, the sensation of Yukhei pulling out his teeth from the delicate flesh of his neck was _definitely_ something he never wanted to feel _ever_ again. The closest he could ever compare it to, was to being nearly decapitated by a guillotine. But it was just an exaggeration on his part, truly, because the moment he put his hands protectively around his neck, it surely was not hanging just by a string of muscle. Even though it sure felt like it did.

 

Before Sicheng could fully process the situation, Yukhei roughly tugged his hands away from the wound of his neck, and the world around him whirled around in a blur of muted colours as he found himself pinned against the damp bed underneath a fully recovered Yukhei. _‘It’s over,’_ that thought slowly but potently dawned in his mind when Yukhei dived down and once again latched his mouth around his tender skin. He couldn’t fight back, and he couldn’t stop Yukhei from draining his blood dry. It’s over. He’s nothing but dead meat. He could only shut his eyes firmly when Yukhei began to… run his tongue all over his open wound, very _very_ carefully?

 

“What are you doing?” His confusion was met with silence. The only sign showing that Yukhei heard his question came from him loosening his tight grip from around Sicheng’s wrists and how he exchanged it with a mindful, albeit a little awkward, hug.  

 

The silence stretched for a considerable amount of time. Even after Yukhei’s done doing whatever vampire healing magic mumbo jumbo on his wound (even managing to top it off with a dainty _get-well-soon_ kiss on the bruised skin) and Sicheng has long since stopped fearing for his life, Yukhei still didn’t move his head from being buried deep in the nook of Sicheng’s shoulder, and they only laid there on the sad excuse of a bed. Motionless and soundless, safe for Sicheng’s slowly calming breaths and Yukhei’s attempt at matching them with his own.

 

“I’m sorry.” Yukhei turned to be the one who broke the drought with a little apologetic whisper, “I saw how terrified you were.”

 

When Sicheng took too long to respond, he could feel Yukhei’s arm tightening around his body ever so softly, as if he _knew_ how close he was to screwing up and causing history to repeat itself, “I shouldn’t have done that, I’m sorry.”

 

There’s so many things Sicheng would’ve said to him in return. _‘Silly, it’s okay’_ or _‘I would never let you_ not _do it’_ or _‘strangely, I kindda enjoyed it’_. But he couldn’t even feel his tongue inside his mouth and so he decided to just convey his thoughts through the movement of him lazily raking his hands through Yukhei’s stringy hair. And even then, they were severely trembling, that what was supposed to be a tender moment ended up looking like Sicheng was repeatedly slapping Yukhei’s head. He didn’t seem to mind though. Maybe because he thought he deserved it, or maybe it was because he was immersed so deeply inside his gladness of not killing his human companion to feel Sicheng’s pathetic pats.

 

“Can you do me a favour?” Sicheng said with a lot of struggle, what with his tongue feeling like it was made out of a ball of cotton against the roof of his mouth.

 

To that, Yukhei jumped into attention, kneeling on top of him with that gleam of life back within his eyes, “anything!”

 

“Blanket, please?” If Yukhei was still alive, Sicheng wouldn’t have needed it. The warmth of his body would’ve been more than enough, judging from how close they were in relation to each other. But unfortunately he wasn’t. So the sensation of his sweaty shirt starting to dry out in the chilly night breeze was _just_ a little bit too much for him. That’s okay though, he wasn’t complaining. Yukhei was quick at retrieving the spare duvet from his wardrobe, and as his body temperature has also lowered down considerably from the shock of getting his blood drawn to the brink of it, Sicheng didn’t even flinch when Yukhei placed his tepid fingers across his sticky forehead.

 

“Anything else?” Yukhei asked while helping him to bundle himself up into a roll of blanket burrito. Sicheng felt slightly guilty for thinking how adorable Yukhei looked with how much he worry and fuss over him after nearly sucking all his blood dry, essentially after nearly killing him. Those eyes of his have never looked wider and Sicheng was instantly smitten.

 

As they were both no longer dying, Sicheng gave in on that sudden urge to give Yukhei’s lips, stained bright red with his own blood, a deep kiss. A kiss that he couldn’t _feel_ per se _,_ as the numbness that surrounded his neck and mouth area still hasn’t subsided, but one that he could clearly taste. The sharp metallic taste of blood shot right through his blocked sinuses and it overwhelmed him to such an extent, that in the end and he wasn’t even sure if it was him or Yukhei who let out that one especially loud, especially desperate sounding moan.

 

Sicheng didn’t want it to end, honestly, he did not. But his head was starting to feel like it was a detached entity from the rest of his body, reeling into the void. So if they were to enjoy the rest of the night to the best of their abilities, Sicheng needed Yukhei to do one last thing for him, “there’s a bar of chocolate inside my bag. Go get it and I’ll give you _more._ ”

 

_

 

(Yukhei returned a minute later with an armful of Sicheng’s favourite brand of chocolate that rained down on the bed when Yukhei slipped on one of his empty meat packs.

 

“Did you steal this.”

 

Yukhei answered by ripping the wrapper of one open and shoving nearly a quarter of the bar down Sicheng’s throat, probably forgetting that humans can’t eat as quickly as he does. “Will you care if I say that I did?”

 

The smile and the satisfied sigh that Sicheng let out after he managed to bite out a mouthful of the bar and letting the sugar circulate through his veins gave the impression that he was okay with Yukhei’s criminal act. He wasn’t. Two bars in and two kisses with increasingly better tactile response from Sicheng’s tongue later, he slapped Yukhei across his cheek with his third bar and harshly admonished him, in a perfectly enunciated scold, “you have to pay them back later.”

 

Yukhei only shrugged at that, mumbling all his yesses across Sicheng’s neck, whose skin was starting to bloom in a colourful display of purples and reds, and once again they lost their abilities to care. At that moment, Sicheng has never felt more thankful that all this happened on a Friday night. Because then they’ll have the whole weekend to fix everything up.)

 

 

(But they probably would just ruin it all again, so why bother?)

 

**Author's Note:**

> INSPIRED BY IRI AKA [@jjokkiri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjokkiri/pseuds/jjokkiri) thankyou so much for the inspiration ily ;;.;;  
> and also by what we do in the shadows l o l 
> 
> dedicated to Quinnie and My aka my two solid luwin shipper pals, pray that nct china will water our dry earth ok we're desperate
> 
> hmu @ my twitter [@moon__soil](https://twitter.com/moon__soil) ~


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